ToneTag launches voice-led merchant banking device in India

ToneTag has launched eKosha, a voice-first business assistant designed to let banks provide merchant banking services at the point of payment in India. The company said the device combines payment acceptance, voice-based banking and on-device artificial intelligence, targeting a market with more than 80 million micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.

The product is aimed at banks seeking a more direct channel to merchants, according to ToneTag. Rather than relying only on apps, call centres or third-party aggregators, banks can deploy eKosha at merchant counters and use the payment terminal as a daily service and sales point.

Payments terminal as banking channel

According to ToneTag, eKosha accepts UPI, UPI 123Pay and central bank digital currency payments. It also acts as an extension of a bank’s service network, giving merchants access to support, banking services, loan and credit options, government schemes and business information through spoken requests.

The company said merchants can use natural voice conversations in their own language and do not need to download an app. ToneTag said the device is designed for deployment by banks directly to merchants, without requiring changes in merchant behaviour or additional infrastructure investment.

The mechanism is straightforward: the counter device handles the payment interaction and also becomes a banking interface. A merchant can use speech to request services or information, while the bank can use the same endpoint to provide assistance, present relevant products and gather data from recurring interactions, subject to its own controls and policies.

Local AI processing

ToneTag said eKosha uses its Small Action Language Model, or SALM, to support natural-language interactions across Indian languages. The company said the system uses an analog edge-compute architecture, meaning AI inference is processed locally on the device rather than sending every request to cloud infrastructure.

That design is intended to support offline voice interactions in areas with limited connectivity, according to ToneTag. The company also said the approach reduces energy use and cost compared with conventional cloud-dependent digital systems. ToneTag linked the technology to its work in transmitting secure data over soundwaves, which it described as an analog medium.

For banks, ToneTag is positioning eKosha as both a servicing tool and a relationship channel. The company said repeated interactions at the merchant counter can help banks develop richer merchant information, support safer credit decisions and speed up loan origination.

Kumar Abhishek, ToneTag’s founder and chief executive, said the merchant counter is central to Indian commerce and that eKosha is intended to make it a centre for merchant banking. He said the product gives banks a persistent channel at the place where merchants conduct business and supports access to services through speech in local languages.

ToneTag said banks using eKosha can cut merchant servicing costs by up to 60%, increase cross-sell per merchant by two times, accelerate loan origination and reduce churn from 15% to 20% to 6% to 9%. Those figures were provided by the company and were not independently verified.

This story draws on original reporting from Finextra Research.